Volunteer

Animal Care Volunteering

Maricopa County Animal Care and Control is proudly the Number 1 lifesaving open-admission shelter in the Valley. The generous support of our volunteer force has made this possible. Volunteers provide care for our homeless animals from walking dogs to matching a family with their new kitten. It's easy to become a volunteer (Due to a high volume of new volunteer applications, please allow 4-6 weeks for us to respond to your submissions.):

Attend on-boarding and schedule a Buddy Day with an experienced volunteer or staff member

Volunteers must be at least 18 years of age. Volunteers ages 12-17 must be accompanied with their parent or guardian and will have limited animal-handling duties.

Volunteer Job

Descriptions

Adoption Counselor: Provide great customer service by facilitating meetings between potential adopters and pets.

Kennel Assistant: Seeing to the needs of the animals, which includes spot cleaning, walking/socializing, watering and providing bedding.

Petite Pet Project: Taking care of the small dogs in our shelter. This is where our small dogs go who are not quite ready for adoption, but will be in the future with your help.

Photographer: Making sure all animals have a quality photograph on their file so that our online customers can easily find the pet they're looking for and lost animals can be reunited with their owners.

Groomer: Washing, trimming coats and nails. Some tools are provided, but may need some of your own.

Clinic Assistant: Assisting vet techs by cleaning kennels, laundry, assisting in recovery, returning animals to their kennels and assisting in other tasks.

Day Foster: Take one of our dogs out for a day, a half day or just a couple of hours for a much-needed break from the shelter.

Laundry and Blanket Helpers: Depending on the time of year, our animals need blankets for warmth and comfort, which generates a lot of laundry. This is a perfect job for those folks who might not be suited to working directly with animals. Also, gather and/or sew blankets and pillows for our animals. Very little training commitment is required for this job duty.

Water and Poo Crew

Let's face it - poo happens! The Water and Poo Crew is a new program supported by Maddies Fund. The crews will help make pets more comfortable during their shelter stay. Fresh water is always important and cleaning poo makes each kennel more comfortable for our pets, prevents spreading of germs, makes it smell better and look better. Here's what you will do:

Give each dog fresh water and clean kennels.

Help pick up items around the shelter and put them away.

Share photos and stories and get shelter animals adopted.

How to start:

Attend a WPC orientation - children 8 years and older are welcome to participate with a parent or guardian.

Learn more about the shelter and try your hand at a WPC shift.

If you like it, great. Form your WPC team and name your team.

Attend an official WPC training. All team members should attend.

Pick your WPC date/time and sign up for your shift.

Report for your shift and handle the chores.

After your shift, spend time with a pup and share on social media.

We ask for a time commitment of at least one 4-hour shift per month for eight months.

Training: Training will take approximately 6-8 hours, depending on the capacity in which you would like to volunteer. This can be spread out over 2-3 visits, or most of it can be completed in one day, depending upon your scheduling needs.

Volunteering: We ask for a minimum of 8 hours per month. This can be 2 shifts of 4 hours, or 4 shifts of 2 hours, or anything else. We are completely flexible. If your schedule demands much from you, we will happily accept fewer hours, as long as you are able to make it in every month. Volunteer hours are from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at both shelter locations.

Online Orientation

Please view the following videos (click links). Once finished, our staff will set you up an on-boarding (orientation) date; after that, you will be assigned to shadow a staff member or senior volunteer.